Ramon H. Myers

This book tells the story of Taiwan’s economic revolution—how Taiwan transformed itself from a planned economy into a market economy between 1949 and 1965. The authors posit that it was the Kuomintang Government's endorsement of property rights reform and institutional change that enabled Taiwan to transform from an impoverished command economy to one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The book gives special attention to how a small group of political and economic leaders began adopting the new ideas and beliefs that created the vision that enabled them to embrace institutional and organizational innovations, actions which led to the formation of the new market economy. Using first-hand interview material with key government officials from the period, and analyses of hitherto unused Chinese-language archives including: the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek, Kuomintang party archives, and personal papers of Kuomintang leaders, as well as newspaper and journal articles published in Taiwan between 1949 and 1965, this book is both empirically rich, and gives the reader insights into Taiwan's developmental experience and the direction in which, under different circumstances, China's post-war expansion might have proceeded. Taiwan's Economic Transition will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the economic and political history and development of Taiwan. More broadly it will also appeal to scholars and students of China's historical and contemporary development, Asian economics, and Asian studies.

This book tells the story of Taiwan’s economic revolution—how Taiwan transformed itself from a planned economy into a market economy between 1949 and 1965. The authors posit that it was the Kuomintang Government's endorsement of property rights reform and institutional change that enabled Taiwan to transform from an impoverished command economy to one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The book gives special attention to how a small group of political and economic leaders began adopting the new ideas and beliefs that created the vision that enabled them to embrace institutional and organizational innovations, actions which led to the formation of the new market economy. Using first-hand interview material with key government officials from the period, and analyses of hitherto unused Chinese-language archives including: the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek, Kuomintang party archives, and personal papers of Kuomintang leaders, as well as newspaper and journal articles published in Taiwan between 1949 and 1965, this book is both empirically rich, and gives the reader insights into Taiwan's developmental experience and the direction in which, under different circumstances, China's post-war expansion might have proceeded. Taiwan's Economic Transition will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the economic and political history and development of Taiwan. More broadly it will also appeal to scholars and students of China's historical and contemporary development, Asian economics, and Asian studies.

The political transformation of Taiwan from an authoritarian regime into a democracy is one of the great political sagas of the 20th century. Defeated on the China mainland, the Kuomintang established a new polity on Taiwan that allowed for four remarkable patterns of political development. These patterns reflect a complex political process of behavioral and institutional change in which the key requisites for democracy now exist in Taiwan. Taiwan's history of citizen participation in direct elections, along with the political institutional changes narrated here by Chao and Myers, produced an unprecedented, peaceful political turn-over of power from the KMT ruling party to the DPP, or Democratic Progressive Party, in March 2000.

A group of internationally prominent China scholars held a conference at the Hoover Institution in December 1994 to discuss how U. S. policy can best respond to recent changes in China and made clear that a "get-tough" policy would ultimately fail. This volume presents, in ten authoritative chapters, the first comprehensive overview of this complex topic—along with sound reasoning to support its provocative conclusion. The end of the cold war left the United States as the world's only superpower, but greater China was already in the throes of major change. As a post-Mao People's Republic gradually shifted from totalitarianism to a "socialist market economy," Taiwan underwent an "economic micracle" and then democratized. Hostilities between these two governments subsided, but America remained faced with Beijing's continuing authoritarianism and human rights abuses. In light of these circumstances, what posture should U. S. foreign policy adopt in dealing with China: confrontation or cooperation? Indeed, is such a clear-cut choice possible? Thomas A. Metzger and Ramon H. Myers assembled the participants, weaving an overview of this whole problem and concluding that the United States should try to nurture harmonious relations with China. The papers included here analyze the recent evolution of Chinese foreign policy toward Taiwan, Taiwan's development and policy on unification, security and economic issues, and the diplomatic visions that will affect the future of greater China. As a whole, this book coherently formulates the principles that should guide U. S. policy toward greater China in the next decades.

This volume evaluates the complex developments between the United States and Korea and offers policy recommendations for how both countries in the future might avoid the bitter politiczation of trade disputes of the recent past and expand their economic relations.

The authors of this volume illustrate the extraordinary success of the Taiwan Relations Act in contributing to regional security and a high level of economic and political stability in one of the world's most tactically unpredictable and volatile areas.

This diary offers an important new perspective on the critical events leading to the end of the Chinese civil war. From September 1945 to April 1946, Chang Kia-ngau kept a daily log in the negotiations between Nationalist China and Soviet Union to recover Manchuria from Soviet military occupation. The diary reveals that the Russians actively sought Nationalist China's cooperation in rehabilitating and operating the huge industrial complex that the Japanese had built in Manchuria during the 1930s and 1940s. The Russians were willing to let Chiang Kai-shek's government take control over Manchuria if the Nationalists would pledge that only Russia would be able to exert foreign influence in Manchuria. Chang Kia-ngau's diary is an eyewitness account of how Manchuria, one of the world's greatest industrial sites, fell to the control of the Chinese Red Army and thus led to the communist victory over Chiang Kai-shek. This book will interest students of cold war rivalry, U. S. foreign policy, Soviet diplomacy, and Chinese history alike.